Our “grit, our love for each other and our sense of community remains untouched.”
Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

It’s 7:30am, the morning after the Liberal party voted to re-introduce a plebiscite on marriage equality, and I’m on the lawns of parliament. Around me are 1,000 paper hearts with messages of hope for marriage equality collected by the NSW Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby, and about a dozen dedicated LGBTI activists.

I pick up some pink hearts to stick into the lawn, bleary eyed. I have barely slept last night. My exhausted body was kept awake by racing mind and a pounding heart. It’s the same worry that kept me awake throughout 2016; the looming spectre of a plebiscite and how damaging it would be to so many people I love. Last night the worry was tempered with frustrated confusion. How could they try to revive a plan so cruel, so unpopular, so unnecessary?

My hands are freezing and my knees are wet from the grass as I think about a young woman I met in Brisbane last week, who told me her family didn’t accept her for her sexuality and how hard it was feeling alone. I think about a couple I met in Hobart in 2015 who have been engaged for 10 years, know exactly where they will have their wedding and have their dresses hanging in their closet, but remain waiting.

I think about my friend Peter De Waal, who lost his partner of 50 years, Peter Bonsall-Boone, in May before they were able to marry. I think about Tyrone Unsworth, the 13 year old boy who took his own life last year after relentless homophobic bullying from kids who’ve grown up in a country that treats LGBTI people as second class citizens.

I push the paper hearts into the grass harder. Just keep going.

It’s 9:30am and I’m hurrying through parliament. I pass the corner of the Mural Hall where last night I watched Mathias Cormann address the media immediately after the emergency meeting.

“There are two choices now,” he taunted, “parliament can either vote for a compulsory plebiscite at the ballot box, or we will hold a non-compulsory plebiscite by postal vote.”

“Stop avoiding the only real option!” I had thought to myself through gritted teeth as if my frustration would telepathically sway him. The government gave us this ultimatum before – plebiscite or nothing – but we refuse to accept their false binary.

A few hours earlier when it was confirmed that the Liberal party would attempt to revive a plebiscite on marriage equality, my first response was incredulous laughter. What a breathtakingly stupid thing to do, my colleagues at GetUp and I exclaimed. Why on earth would prime minister Turnbull or strategists within the Liberal party think arguing about marriage equality for months to come would be electorally clever?

Such is the coping mechanism of any campaigner with a lived experience of what they’re fighting for. There’s no time for feelings when there’s work to do.

This morning follows the same rule. “I’m about to hit send on an email to our members in the five members’ electorates, asking them to cross the floor,” I hurriedly tell Tiernan Brady, director of the equality campaign, over the phone, both our voices strained with tiredness. When we hugged goodnight the night before, we didn’t say anything.

Before I can send the email it’s 11:30am and I’m in the Labor caucus room, gathered with the giants of the marriage equality campaign to seek confirmation from Bill Shorten and his team that their opposition to the plebiscite will hold.

Looking around the room, I recognise the exhaustion in the eyes of the equality campaign co-chair Anna Brown, the frustration in long-time activist Rodney Croome’s furrowed brow. Rainbow Families’ Felicity Marlowe wrings her hands as she explains that her children couldn’t come to parliament today, because they were too ridden with anxiety about the return of a plebiscite.

I feel a lump in my throat as I watch two mums squeeze tight the young children on their laps. We know that children will be the target of any plebiscite campaign. Whether it’s “teaching kids gender doesn’t matter”, “denying kids a mum and a dad” or “encouraging kids to be gay” – our opponents always target children. No one knows this more than their parents.

Shorten assures us that Labor will not support any plebiscite, and we pose for a group photo together. Penny Wong makes a joke about lesbians and we all laugh.

I race through the corridors of parliament house and now I’m standing at the back of Malcolm Turnbull’s press conference on marriage equality. He looks a shell of the man who wore leather jackets on the ABC. I watch with anger as he laughs about everyone having their say on “same-sex marriage” as if he’s not talking about people’s lives. My friend’s lives. My life.

A journalist asks “why subject the gay and lesbian community to two months of people saying hurtful things?” and this time my eyes fill with tears of gratitude. The question isn’t about me, it isn’t anything other than a reasonable and relevant question, but it feels as if someone has just stood up to my bully. The prime minister responds with something about his faith in the good behaviour of Australian people. He has not seen my message request folders on social media.

And I know that I’m emotional because of the news, but also because I haven’t stopped working in over a month. The last four weekends have each been spent in a different city rallying with hundreds of hopeful people for a free vote and producing video content for the campaign. I’m just one of many who’ve been working this hard towards a glimmer of hope.

“No, it’s over. They’re too worried about the damage in their first term”, a staffer tells me in the corridor. I am incredulous at that logic – the damage is done? Why wouldn’t they finish the job? How could they sell us out like that?

I think about a GetUp video we made two weeks ago where I enthusiastically describe the five Liberal MPs preparation to cross the floor for marriage equality as “really cool!” and shudder.

The Liberal party once again turned their back on the people they are meant to represent, and caved to the far right ideologues of their party. I know that seven Liberal MPs bravely spoke up for a free vote in the party room, but in that moment I’m angry that they’re saying they won’t follow through.

I return to a pile of my things, stashed in a friendly MP’s office. I finally open my phone and read this message from a friend in Melbourne: “Don’t let the bastards grind you down. We’re still here, we’re still queer, and we will get through this together.”

The government's marriage equality policy is frustrating, but it won't stop the tide of change | Rodney Croome

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And for the first time in 24 hours, I don’t feel like crying. I don’t feel the protective panic at the thought of a plebiscite, or the crushing bitterness at being treated like rubbish by my country’s government. All I feel is the deep, burning gratitude for the support, enterprise and resilience of my LGBTI community.

Today we are angry. Some of us are stunned, some of us are heartbroken. Many of us are frustrated that this parliament is so obsessed with marriage equality when so many of us are homeless, denied critical healthcare and locked out of employment. But our grit, our love for each other and our sense of community remains untouched.

I remember that it was only months ago we were patronisingly told that saying no to the plebiscite meant we’d blown our chance of marriage equality for two years. Just months later, we forced the government into an emergency meeting to revisit their plebiscite policy and consider a free vote.

We are more powerful than ever. We didn’t win yesterday, but we sure as hell will.